Oedipus

The line of Cadmus passed to Laius, his great-grandson, who took as his queen Jocasta. But now it looked as if the line was at an end, for an oracle foretold that if Laius had a son, he would kill his own father and marry his mother. So Laius and Jocasta were resigned to having no heir. Despite their best efforts, Jocasta bore Laius a son, presenting Laius with a dilemma: he did not dare to kill the child, remembering what happened to Heracles when he killed his children. Instead he ordered a retainer to take the child away and to leave it to die on the mountains, to starve or fall prey to the beasts, leaving Laius with no blood on his hands. For nearly 20 years Laius reigned happily, but one day while the king was travelling in his chariot he came to a crossroads and found a man blocking the way: "Make way, brigand," said Laius. The man refused. Laius got out his horsewhip and whipped him. The man grabbed the whip and pulled him from his chariot. There was a fight and Laius was killed.

Jocasta wept bitter tears, lamenting not only the death of her husband but also the death, many years ago, of her son. For it was now clear that they had mistaken the oracle's true meaning and she had allowed her only child to be killed for no reason. While Thebes mourned, news came to mitigate their sadness with rejoicing. For many years a monster called Sphinx - a woman with the body of a lion and wings, who had landed on Mount Phikion - had been plaguing the city, picking off the sons of Thebes. She demanded of all who passed the answer to a riddle: "What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, three at dusk, and fastest moves on fewest?" When they could not answer, she ate them. Now a man called Oedipus, son of the king of Corinth, had found the answer: Man, who crawls on all fours in the morning of his life and leans on a stick in his dotage, but is at his fastest when in his prime. The Sphinx promptly threw herself off the cliff, with nothing left to live for, now everyone knew the answer to her riddle. The Thebans chose Oedipus as their new king. He even married Laius's widow, Jocasta. She was old enough to be his mother, but youthful. Indeed she soon bore him sons and daughters.

For a while Thebes was happy and prosperous under its clever new king, but then cattle started dying, the crops suffered a blight and deaths of children rose. Delphi revealed that the gods were angry because Laius's murderer had gone unpunished. So Oedipus set out to find the murderer, first asking Jocasta all the details of what had happened. She told him. Oedipus went white, for he remembered that fight at the crossroads: the murdering brigand was he. As he took it all in, an old messenger arrived from Corinth with news that his father was dead. Oedipus was sorry but also pleased that he had escaped his destiny. For it had been prophesied that he would kill his father. That was the reason he had left Corinth in the first place. "Oh no," said the messenger, "the king was not your real father. I took you to the king myself and he adopted you, for he had no sons of his own." "Who is my real father?" asked Oedipus. "I don't know," said the messenger. "Ask the man I got you from! Ask him!' And he pointed to a palace servant, one of Laius's old retainers. "Don't ask me!" said the old retainer. "Ask her!" And he pointed to Jocasta, who was going through a gamut of emotions.

She now realised she had found her long-lost son and embraced the old retainer. "For years I was wracked with guilt thinking of my first born, cold and alone on the mountain. But you were kind and couldn't let him die." "No!" said the old retainer, hanging his head as tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks. Then she turned to Oedipus. "For years you have been running from an oracle. Run no more. You have already killed your father and married your mother, for I am your mother, the mother of your children." She then entered the palace and hanged herself, while Oedipus reached for the brooch that clasped his cloak. "How blind I have been," he cried. "How blind! How blind!" And he stabbed himself in the eyes.